“Almost everyone agrees that autism is caused by a combination of genetics and the environment,” writes science journalist Sarah DeWeert. “But while geneticists can comfortably rattle off lists of dozens of autism-linked genes, there’s much less agreement about which environmental factors contribute to the disorder — and by how much.”
DeWeert takes an in-depth look at why decades of research have pinned down relatively few of the environmental factors that affect autism risk, in the “Deep Dive” feature section of the online autism research news site Spectrum.
Read her full feature story here.
Several of the studies mentioned in the story have received support from Autism Speaks, which has invested more than $16 million into research on the environmental factors that contribute to – or protect against – autism.
Read more about Autism Speaks Environmental Factors in Autism Research Initiative here.
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